Perinatal Supportive Care

Loving Care for Babies and Families

Supportive care is a team made up of doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, care coordinators and a family support specialist committed to helping your family and newborn through a difficult illness and long hospitalizations.  

Our goal is to get to know your family and to be a shoulder to lean on. We work with your child’s entire medical team to develop and customize a medical plan of care that is best for your baby’s overall health and quality of life.

We also offer perinatal supportive care prenatal visits. During these visits, we meet with you and your family before your baby is born.  

How Supportive Care Can Help

Our team is trained in the physical, emotional and spiritual care of families with seriously ill infants. We work closely with your obstetrician or your baby’s doctor to create a medical plan that addresses your life plan for your baby.

The perinatal supportive care team can help you with:

Communication

• Understand your child’s illness and the medical options available
• Know what to expect during your hospital stay
• Develop a birth plan
• Discuss goals of care
• Discuss and develop future care plans for your child

Comfort

• Help with symptom management and medical decisions
• Emotional and spiritual support
• Coordination with home care services
• Care at end of life

Bonding 

• Obtain hand and footprints and pictures of your baby
• Dedication or blessing for your baby
• Dressing baby in special outfits
• Support for siblings by a family support specialist
• Celebration of family moments and milestones, such as holding your baby or reading to them

If your child has a condition that cannot be cured, our team will help you plan the memories you want with your child during and after delivery. You and your family determine how you want to spend time with your baby and what is most important to you. Our team will ensure the time you have is protected and respected.

If you experience the loss of your baby, we will connect you with community resources for funeral, grief and bereavement support.

Who Is Eligible to Receive These Services?

Our team provides care for babies with many different types of serious conditions. Below is a list of common diagnoses supported by perinatal supportive care services:  

• Trisomy 13
  
• Trisomy 18
  
• Holoprosencephaly
  
• Anencephaly
  
• Hydranencephaly (congenital hydrocephalus)
  
• Complex cardiac lesions (single ventricle pathophysiology, hypoplastic left heart syndrome)
  
• Anhydramnios or early oligohydramnios (bilateral renal agenesis, infantile polycystic kidneys)
• Severe congenital diaphragmatic hernia
  
• Lethal skeletal dysplasia or malformations
  
• Large abdominal wall defects
  
• 3rd Trimester intrauterine fetal demise (IUFD)
  
• 23-week gestation preterm labor/delivery
  
• Maternal medical condition leading to early delivery before 23 weeks
  
• A diagnosis or condition in the unborn baby in which the baby is not expected to have long-term survival or the disease carries high risk of significant sickness or death

Perinatal Supportive Care Services Beyond Delivery 

In addition to providing a great deal of support before, during and immediately after delivery, we continue to provide services to you and your family after you leave the hospital.

Perinatal Supportive Care experts at University Health are available to you from the time of diagnosis and continue to be there throughout your child’s life.  

How Do I Get Perinatal Supportive Care Services for My Family?

For more information about our services, please speak to your obstetrician or your infant’s doctor about perinatal supportive care. Ask them to refer you to our team.

For more information, please call 210-743-4575. You can also email questions about our services to Perinatal.PalliativeCare@uhtx.com. 

Perinatal Supportive Care Prenatal Visit Location

Perinatal supportive care prenatal services are located at University Hospital, 6th floor Rio Tower.